


The Man In 14G

by fideliant



Category: The Hobbit (Jackson Movies), The Hobbit - All Media Types, The Hobbit - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Neighbors, Humor, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-08
Updated: 2015-02-08
Packaged: 2018-03-11 00:29:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,072
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3308963
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fideliant/pseuds/fideliant
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bilbo Baggins just wants some peace and quiet. His new neighbours aren't helping.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Man In 14G

**Author's Note:**

> If you're looking for context, listen to [this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jBJn4BHtqqY).

It’s a Thursday afternoon when Bilbo moves in.

He’d wanted to sign the lease a week ago, but his parents had insisted on trying to find him a place closer to UCH, which would’ve been alright if Bilbo himself hadn’t already gone through the trouble of flat-hunting for nearly a whole month before finding this particular instalment out in Hampstead. Okay, so it’s quite a ways from the city, but it’s that or an extra odd hundred pounds in rent for a single-room in Euston, and he’s barely affording London on a junior doctor’s wage as it is. He has a direct tube line to the hospital and the neighbourhood seems nice enough, with a large park and a Sainsbury’s within walking distance, so as far as new flats go he can’t really ask for anything more than that.

And flat 14G is… nice. Very nice, as a matter of fact, and it’s not five years of suffering through student accommodation that has him saying this. The flat is small, but cosy and fully furnished, and there aren’t any buildings around that are higher than ten floors so there’s nothing to block out the sun during the day. There’s not much traffic about either, so it’s quiet indoors and out, which is the most important bit, and Bilbo thinks as he’s taking the lift up that he could get used to living here very nicely indeed.

That is, until it’s evening.

He’s just finished dinner and is at his reading desk, flipping through an NHS circular when a strange sound catches his attention. Distinctly musical, and resonant, like the electrical humming of a fluorescent light. It’s _singing,_ Bilbo realises once he’s sat up to listen more carefully, filtering up from the flat below. And not just any singing, because —

_Ma per fortuuuna, e una notte di luuunaaaa…_

That’s, okay, Bilbo turns on Radio 4 from time to time, which is how he knows that’s Puccini, but.

But.

_Aspetti, signorinaaaaa…_

See, it’s one thing to listen to opera over the radio and another to be one floor up from a proper rendition — the man downstairs has a deep, powerful voice that rumbles through the floorboards and seems to spread along the walls of Bilbo’s bedroom, and while Bilbo has no doubt in his mind that it would sound perfectly at home within the confines of a concert hall, he thinks about how peaceful it’s been all day and feels somewhat annoyed.

_Le dirò con due parole, chi son, CHI SOOOOOOONN —_

Alright, make that very, very annoyed. That’s reasonable, isn’t it? Like, who in their right mind deems it appropriate to practice opera at ten in the evening?

Someone else below seems to agree with this, because the singing grinds to an abrupt halt at the advent of another man’s angry shrieking, “What the hell, Dwalin?! People are trying to sleep, for the love of God!” This is followed by some inaudible mumbling, and then the same person is going off on one again, “I don’t care if the recital’s on Wednesday, you’re not practising now! Christ Jesus, I swear, if we get one more complaint, I’m going to —”

The voices fade gradually, and then silence is restored once more. All the same, Bilbo can’t quite refocus on the circular because he’s thinking too much about bringing this up with the landlord, considering he wasn’t warned there’d be a bloody dramatic baritone one floor down when he was willing to put in a four hundred pound non-refundable deposit on the flat. Soon enough, going to bed seems like a much better idea than forcing himself through ten more pages of medical protocol that he’s probably not going to remember in the morning anyway.

 

***

 

Two days after, Bilbo is stuck on a gruelling sixteen-hour overnight shift at the hospital, which he knows for sure is against NHS regulations, but it’s Saturday and they’re stretched thin in A&E as it is, so he decides to to put off filing a formal complaint for the time being. When he finally signs off and gets back to his flat, it’s approaching nine in the evening and he’s almost dead on his feet, which is why he doesn’t really register the other three people occupying the lift with him until one of them, a stout man with rosy cheeks, is holding the doors open for another to roll a bass drum in.

In the meantime, the last person presses the button for floor fifteen, and this is when Bilbo blinks himself sufficiently awake to register the leather guitar cases slung around their necks.

“D’you know when Gloin’s gonna show up?” the man at the lift doors asks.

The one at the lift buttons, a tall fellow with short brown hair and a long face, shakes his head. “Nah. Ori might know, though.”

“He said about half past nine,” the youth with the drum supplies. “But Oin’s busy, so he won’t be coming.”

“That’s fine. We’ve just got to get the chorus down by tonight, that’s all, and if you’ve all done your own practising then it shouldn’t be a problem.”

“What about the intro?”

Bilbo doesn’t get to find out exactly what it is that they plan to do with the intro, however, because the lift arrives at his floor and all he can think of while he’s stepping out is _not 15G, please, god, not 15G, anything but 15G…_

Half an hour later his bedroom ceiling is thundering with Led Zeppelin, or perhaps The Rolling Stones, just something heavy and loud and maddeningly insistent; it doesn’t really matter, because Bilbo grinding curses against his pillow and can’t think too much about the music keeping him up, not to mention all the lovely imagery of smashed guitars and perforated drum skins that’s running through his sleep-deprived brain.

_Something_ has to be done about this.

 

***

 

Blu-tacked to the front door of 15G on Sunday morning:

 

 

***

 

Found pushed under the front door of 14G on Sunday evening:

 

 

***

 

The next two days pass with minimal disturbance, save the odd plucking of an electric guitar string from the flat above and whispers of Wagner from the one below. He has Wednesday off, and it’s his only weekday out of the hospital in a month of two and a half weekend shifts, so Bilbo sleeps in until eleven, makes himself a massively calorific brunch of bacon, eggs, fried mushrooms and chips when he gets up, and spends close to six hours catching up on QI with chocolate raisins standing by. For all he’s been put through, he thinks he deserves the indulgence.

At half past five he’s feeling guilty enough about his day to go out for a run, and does five laps of the nearby park before he’s aching and clutching at his sides and wishing he’d just stayed home instead. He ambles about the streets as he recovers his breath and picks up a Gatorade from a pop-up newsstand, because electrolytes, and he finishes it before making his way back to the flat.

When he gets home, however, it is to two men locked in what appears to be an attempt to fuse into each other, pressed up against his front door. Neither of them take note of Bilbo until he clears his throat loudly, at which both stop trying to kiss each other’s face off and turn to him with matching abashed grins.

“Oh, sorry,” the one leaning against Bilbo’s door offers. Bilbo wrinkles his nose, having spent enough nights in A&E to recognise inebriation in the way his words slur together. “We were just, um. About to take this inside. Right, Bifur?”

‘Bifur’ doesn’t respond.

“Not into my flat, I should hope,” Bilbo replies, gesturing at the door with his keyring.

“Hm? Oh! Oh.” The man’s face reddens, though Bilbo suspects this is mostly due to the several beers he most definitely has had. “Yeah, sorry. We’re next door. S’hard to see where we’re going, sometimes… I’m Bofur, by the way.”

“Bilbo.”

“This lug here’s Bifur.” Bofur grins, and signs clumsily with his hands; Bifur signs back with slightly less maladroit, and Bofur laughs. “Light of my life, and deaf as a post, but what can you do, eh? Means I can yell as loud as I want in the sheets, if you know what I mean.”

“Uh.” Bilbo swallows around the sudden lump in his throat. “You… live here, right?”

“Since July, yep.”

“Sorry, it’s just that I thought.” Bilbo stops, because he doesn’t really know what he thought, and then, “Have you been around recently?”

“Nah, too busy getting it with him in Barcelona!” Bofur chuckles, continuing to sign as he speaks, and leans in to kiss Bifur’s cheek. “Got hitched two weeks ago, you see.”

“Ah. Er — congratulations.”

“Thanks, neighbour. Well, we won’t keep you any longer,” Bofur says, and winks as they amble over to 14F. “It was very nice to meet you.”

“And you,” Bilbo mumbles as he returns to his flat, feeling faint in a manner that has nothing to do with fatigue and everything to do with trying to recall if he’d seen anything on the floorplans about neighbouring flats having bedrooms adjacent to each other.

 

***

 

It turns out that they _are._ Very much so, and following that revelation, Bilbo also discovers that the walls are just about as soundproof as the floor and ceiling.

_Bang_ goes the wall behind the headboard of Bilbo’s bed, _bang bang bang bang,_ like a wrecking ball trying to punch its way into his bedroom. Bits of plaster flake from the walls. There are groans, and wet, sloppy kisses, amid the sounds of creaking furniture and bedposts scraping the floorboards, and stuttering yells of _oh, god, Bifur, yes, oh fuck, fuck, yeah, you beautiful little, fuck, oh, my, GOOODDDD…!_

Lying awake, Bilbo watches the ceiling and thinks that maybe opera isn’t such a bad thing after all.

 

***

 

It all comes to a head at the end of the week following another overnight shift that has Bilbo’s nerves frazzled to a crisp by the time he’s clerked his last patient. He comes back in the afternoon to a renewed bout of warbling from 13G, a blaring guitar riff vibrating down from 15G, and 14F torturing the absolute living daylights out of his bedroom walls. With much-needed sleep no longer an option, Bilbo’s preparing some choice angry words for the door-to-door he’s planning to unleash when 14H decides to join in with a hammer against the wall on the other side of his kitchen sink, and this is when he sees red as he’s never seen before.

He strides out of his flat and is already pounding on 14H’s door before he realises he doesn’t exactly know what he’s going to say. He’s too angry to think in coherent sentences, so deranged shouting seems like a much more likely outcome than the spiel on being a considerate neighbour that he had in mind, but that’s alright with him. If anything is going to make him feel better at this point, it’ll be doling out some sweet, unbridled verbal abuse, and heaven help the person who answers, man, woman, or —

The door clicks open. Bilbo’s mouth follows, ready to deliver spoken Armageddon, but no words come forth because all of a sudden he’s face-to-face with the most well-kept beard he’s ever seen in his life.

“Yes? Can I help you?”

_Hello there,_ Bilbo thinks, and, _yes you can,_ before he remembers that he’s supposed to be angry with whatever hammer-wielding goon that lives next door, but, well. The man that the beard is attached to stares out at him, gaze unwavering as Bilbo lets his own wander for a second. Cropped black hair, striking blue eyes, sharp cheekbones, plus that magnificent beard of his, yikes. Facial hair should not remind him this much of works of art. Bilbo quickly tries to look somewhere else and inadvertently gravitates to the man’s neck, taking in the salt-and-pepper stubble there and then looking back up with a gulp. Never let it be said that he doesn’t have a type, because god damn, talk about a fine specimen of humanity.

“…you alright?”

“Eh?” Bilbo blinks, shaking his head to reboot his brain. “Yes. Erm. Fine.”

The man raises an eyebrow. “You knocked?”

“Yes,” Bilbo mumbles. He glances down the man’s front, thick muscles much too discernible through the sports top he’s wearing, and shakes his head again, returning his eyes to the man’s face. A tuft of dark chest hair is clearly visible over the unbuttoned collar of his shirt, threatening to merge with where beard terminates, and Bilbo feels his mouth water. “Sorry, it’s just. There was a lot of noise coming from your flat, and I wanted to ask about. That.”

“Oh.” The man gives him an apologetic look. “Sorry, I was putting up a new shelf. Didn’t know I was disturbing you.”

“It — it’s alright.”

“Are you new here?”

“I just moved in last week,” Bilbo mumbles, wishing he could stop himself staring because it feels a little impolite, but there’s nowhere else to look, so.

For what it’s worth, the man doesn’t seem to mind, because he grins and offers a hand and says, “Thought so. Don’t remember seeing you around. I’m Thorin, by the way.”

“Bilbo.” He takes Thorin’s hand in a firm grip and finds it pleasantly warm. Hell, he feels pleasantly warm now, and it’s definitely not the anger that’s doing it.

“I’m almost done with the shelf, so it’ll be just a while longer, if that’s okay,” Thorin explains. “Unless if it’s really bothering you, of course.”

“That’s just fine,” Bilbo says faintly. _If you need any help with that shelf, I don’t mind giving you a hand, not at all…_

“Thanks for understanding.”

“S — sure thing. My pleasure. Hope you get that shelf up, no problem.”

A raised eyebrow precedes an amused grin. “I will need my hand back for that, though.”

“Hm? Oh, sorry!” Bilbo lets go, perhaps with a bit too much force. With nothing else to do with his hands, he clasps them behind his back and smiles as naturally as he can through the mortification that must surely be burning his face bright red by now.

Thorin studies him for a moment, then throws his head back and laughs. God, his neck. Bilbo wants to curl his fingers against it, or put his mouth over it. Preferably both. He hasn’t wanted to shag someone else this badly for ages, and it’s not as though final year was prime time for fucking about in the most literal sense.

“Like it here, then?” Thorin asks.

Well, he does _now,_ but Bilbo shakes his head, because he’s already made enough of an idiot of himself, and says, “It’s a bit noisier than I was expecting.”

“Ah, fair enough. Dwalin does tend to go overboard when his brother isn’t around, but he’s quiet enough most days.”

Bilbo smiles. “I’ve noticed.”

“They’ve been much more quiet upstairs nowadays, actually,” Thorin continues. “The racket they used to make, like you wouldn’t believe —”

“I… had some words with them a while back,” Bilbo interjects.

“Did you, now?” Thorin smiles back, and Bilbo tries not to melt. “Most people around here just get earplugs.”

“I’m not most people.”

“Is that so?”

“Quite.”

Thorin raises his eyebrows again but his smile remains. Bilbo is starting to feel lightheaded, but that’s probably due to the sheer volume of blood rushing from his brain to his cock at that precise moment.

“I suppose I should get to know you a little better, then,” Thorin says, holding his door open a bit wider. “Neighbours should know a little about each other, wouldn’t you say so?”

“I guess,” Bilbo says, too casual for all the violins soaring triumphantly in his veins. He licks his lips, not even trying to be discreet about it, and cracks another smile, because why the hell not. “So are you going to let me in, or are we going to talk in your doorway all day?”

Thorin smirks, a sharp lift of the corner of his mouth, and takes a step back to beckon Bilbo into his flat.

 

***

 

14H’s bedroom is larger than Bilbo’s, but also messier. There are free weights and papers scattered about the floor, and a half-installed shelf hangs off the wall on the far side of the room. Below it, a hammer lies propped up against the wall, and two cups of cooling coffee sit atop the windowsill, everything forgotten for the double bed in the corner for the time being.

They don’t draw the curtains because there’s barely any light left in the sky, and besides that there’s nobody who might pass by and take notice. Not on the fourteenth floor, and not that Bilbo would care anyway. He’s too busy fondling Thorin’s bare stomach and sucking at his neck, all while pushing into him over and over again, his cock twitching inside Thorin’s gut every time the man lets out another breathy moan against the top of his head. There is still an aria crescendoing under them and rock music from above, but also sweat and naked skin and _heat,_ so much heat that Bilbo thinks his head may well just explode with it. Even if that doesn’t make any medical sense whatsoever.

_Talor dal mio forziere, ruban tutti i gioelliiiii…_

Thorin shifts heavily under him, clenching around Bilbo, and the crinkling of foil is only just audible over his groans. His latex-encased cock rubs slickly against Bilbo’s belly as he simultaneously coaxes Bilbo’s tongue into his mouth, head tipped back onto soft white pillows.

_You've been learnin', baby, I've been yearnin', all them good times, baby, baby, I've been yearnin'…_

“You’ll take good care of me, won’t you, Dr. Baggins?” Thorin murmurs against his lips. A sly smile and a devilishly cocked eyebrow is his parting shot, and Bilbo shuts him up with a kiss.

_Ventrar con voi pur oraaaa, ed i miei sogni usatiiii…_

_Way, way down inside honey, you need it, I'm gonna give you my love, I'm gonna give you my love…_

Opera from 13G. Heavy rock in 15G. Beneath him the most gorgeous person he’s laid eyes on in years, tangling the sheets with shaking fingers and humming his pleasure every time Bilbo fucks him open.

Bilbo grins, and keeps on thrusting along to the music.

**Author's Note:**

> YES HELLO DO YOU HAVE A SECOND TO TALK ABOUT RICHARD ARMITAGE'S [BEARD](http://fideliant.tumblr.com/post/47940155398/99-100-100-richard-armitage) PLEASE AND THANK YOU


End file.
